Surprised to see so many people defending Mesut Özil here. A lot of people posted here that players should represent the country which they feel the most loyal towards. But then what happened to Özil? What was the need to meet Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, when he was killing thousands in Syria? I will not say that players should stay away from politics. But at least they could stay away from murderous dictators. Would you guys say the same if Steven Gerrard meets the head of the British National Front?

Netherlands is in very poor form, and therefore I don't think that they have a chance against Sri Lanka. However, the Namibia vs Ireland match is very important. The winner from this match will progress to the next phase and the loser need to play in the qualifier again for the 2022 world cup. Scotland is the only associate side that has managed to impress others in this tournament. All the other sides have performed much below what was expected from them. Anyway.. just two days to go for the India vs Pakistan match. Eagerly looking forward for that.

Is 100% foreign ownership allowed in the IPL? If that is not the case, then the Glazer family may need to tie up with some of the local billionaires, like Adani or Birla.

BTW, anyone watching the Oman vs Scotland match? Oman has made 51/3 so far, after 9.3 overs. Aqib Ilyas got a great chance, but he wasted it now. Michael Leask got the wicket and now Scotland is on top. If they win this match, Scotland will finish ahead of Bangladesh in this group. And that further means that Scotland will be placed along with India and Pakistan in Group 2 for the next phase.

The "world" is never going to recognize Taliban, because they are a bunch of murderous terrorists. And they haven't done anything to convince others that they are behaving in a civilized way. I am looking forward to see what the other sports bodies do regarding Afghanistan. FIFA hasn't suspended their membership yet, and on the other hand they have managed to evacuate around 100 football players to Qatar. The ICC has remained mute, despite Afghanistan being one of the test playing nations.

Honestly, did you expected the low crude oil prices to last for ever? The crude price was $100-120 per barrel in 2014. Then there was the crash, which took it all the way down to ~$40 per barrel. In usual circumstances, the prices should be back to the normal levels in a year or so. But Saudi Arabia wanted to destroy the shale oil industry in the United States and therefore kept the prices low for an extended duration. And then Trump became the president and the shale oil sector boomed again.

Oman has been importing players ever since the cricket board was formed in 1979. During the last 42 years, they have failed to field even a single Omani citizen in the national squad. So how can you say that in the future they will have "local talent"? I have seen Oman playing against Bangladesh and Scotland. There was not even a single Omani supporter at the stadium (don't forget that the matches took place in Oman). I don't have a problem with the players getting good salary. But they have no connection to Oman.

You should not pay too much attention to these warmup matches. The management usually give chances to fringe players and the matches are not 100% competitive. In just 3 days, we have the most important match within this world cup, which is India vs Pakistan. Given the fact that Pakistan has lost all of the recent matches against India, they need this win more than their opponents do. And that doesn't mean that winning the match is any less important for India. If they lose, then Kohli will be in a very bad state.

Another $5-$6 trillion to the US federal debt will destroy the economy in the long term. Republicans are worried about the default, but they should have been more aggressive. Anyway, the American people opted for this, when they gave the Democrats (+Murkowski) a majority in the senate. The uber rich will be insulated from any tax increase, as they have infinite number of loopholes available at their disposal. On the other hand, the middle class will witness the erosion in their wealth and a higher tax cut from their salaries.

Foreign tours for India B and C are already going on. But what I am suggesting is different. For example, why can't we replace Oman team in the current T20 World Cup with a India B team? Oman team anyway doesn't have any Omani citizens. All the players are "imported" from countries like India. So instead of them, why can't we include another team from India? For the ICC, the revenues will skyrocket. I am 100% sure that no one in Oman supports the cricket team, as it doesn't contain native players. But if there is another team from India, then there can be huge growth in revenues for the TV broadcasters. India is like the goose that lays golden eggs for the ICC. They need to utilize them to the maximum.

They can't win against teams like Scotland. Bangladesh is proving that their wins at Mirpur was just due to favorable ground conditions. I thought that the defeat against Scotland was a one-off incident. But their performance against Oman yesterday just confirms that their overall form is not good. Now they have just one group match remaining against Papua New Guinea. It should be an easy match, but if they lose it by any chance then they will get kicked out of the world cup. Fortunately for Bangladesh, this time two teams from each group will qualify for the next phase.

I would rather side with stompix here. The Chernobyl tragedy happened because of the mismanagement from the Soviet authorities. The only noticeable nuclear accident that has occurred in the last three decades is Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. Even in this case, according to the government study, so far just one death has occurred from radiation exposure. Now compare this to the millions who die every year from atmospheric pollution, that has been attributed to the thermal power plants.

The bolded part is true not just for Venezuela, but for countries around the world. We can't trust any of the current governments, after what happened in Cyprus. They will print banknotes like crazy, loan unlimited amounts of money and when they need to repay those loans they will start confiscating our assets. And this is not something that is limited to socialist countries like Venezuela and Cuba. Nowadays a lot of the governments are leaning towards socialist policies and such occurrences (Cyprus bank deposit haircut) may be more common.

The problem here in India is that we have too much talent. There is only one cricket team to represent 1.4 billion people (on the other hand, the cricket team of Bermuda has played the world cup and they have a population of just 70,000). So obviously a lot of talented players like Umukt Chand have no option other than to immigrate to another country, if they want to play international cricket. The ICC has made a mockery of the eligibility rules. Anyone who has arrived in another country on a 6-month tourist visa can play for that country. Teams like Oman and UAE are fielding teams that are 100% comprised of Indian and Pakistani nationals. Given this, why can't the ICC add a couple of additional teams from India to the world cup? They can name them as India B or India C.

Namibia is one of the top associate sides. Yesterday was just not their day and that was it. They had Sri Lanka in a spot of bother, when they had them at 26/3 after 5 overs. The turning point was the dropped catch from Bernard Scholtz near the boundary rope. He totally misjudged a relatively easy opportunity and that probably cost Namibia an real chance of making an upset. The score would have been 60/4 at that point and there was a theoretical possibility of Namibia picking up a few more wickets. But as the saying goes - "catches win matches".

With an unbiased jury, Golovkin would have won the matches of 2017 and 2018. There should have been a rematch in 2019, but Alvarez chickened out and refused to face GGG. Now there is no point in getting a trilogy fight in 2022. The fact remains clear - Canelo was afraid of a defeat in 2019 and therefore refused to face Golovkin for the third time. No matter how much glory he achieves at the boxing ring (there is no doubt that Canelo is an all time great), this one thing will remain as a black mark and haunt him forever.

As long as the BCCI dominates the ICC, this situation will continue. The other big boards (ECB, CA and CNZ) are not as powerful as the BCCI, but they act like the sidekicks of the Indian board and try to get a disproportionate share of the revenue for themselves. All that said, I would say that the issues doesn't lies with the BCCI. The real problem lies in the way cricket is being administered. All the other sports bodies (FIFA, FIBA, FILA, IOC, FIH.etc) are being administered by former players. But in case of cricket, most of those at the top are businessmen who care only about money.

Don't you think that at least a part of the crude oil price rise resulted from inflation? I tried to analyze, but couldn't find any large difference between supply and demand for crude oil in the last 2-3 years. So I am suspecting that the current spike has more to do with the unlimited printing of banknotes in the name of COVID stimulus. Don't forget the fact that the M1 monetary supply of the US Dollar went up by 200%+ in the last two years. Trillions have been created out of thin air, and it is natural to have an impact on the market because of this.

Some of my stocks have gone up by as much as 300% this year. On the other hand, Bitcoin has given me 700% returns during the last 12 months. I don't want to compare one over the other, as both have given me good returns. But one issue with Bitcoin is that here in India we need to pay regular income tax on any profit that arises from cryptocurrency transaction (marginal rate of 43%). On the other hand, long term capital gains on stocks are taxed at a discounted rate of 10%, and short term capital gains attract only a 15% tax.

Apartheid era South Africa was kicked out from the ICC for discriminating against the racial minorities. Here, Taliban is doing much worse. They are literally exterminating the religious minorities. Given this, the ICC don't have any option other than to terminate them. The funding will stop as well. Because whatever funds being provided to the Afghan cricket board will end up with the Taliban terrorists and they will use those funds to spread terror in neighboring regions. No need to blame the BCCI here. Even the other boards such as the ECB and CA will do the same.

LOL.. Now Bangladesh is in danger of getting kicked out of the World Cup without reaching the next stage. They prepared substandard pitches at home and managed to beat a second-string New Zealand side. That made them arrogant as hell. Bangladesh receives around $15 million per year from the ICC, while the share that Scotland get is just $500,000. Hero of yesterday's match is a part-time cricketer (Chris Greaves). Cricket Scotland can't afford to give him a full-time contract and therefore he works as a driver for Amazon when there are no matches.